To say that the federal government’s “budget ax” is rusty is a major understatement. It has hardly been used in years, as spending has grown beyond all reason, and certainly beyond what is authorized by the Constitution.
But some Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives seem to be taking seriously the message they got from voters in last November’s elections: They are proposing not merely cosmetic or symbolic spending reductions here and there, but wholesale cuts across a range of wasteful federal programs.
With our national debt now exceeding $14 trillion, it is high time for exactly that approach.
The proposal by conservatives in the House would slash $2.5 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade. The plan comes from the Republican Study Committee. That panel includes Chattanooga’s Rep. Chuck Fleischmann as well as Rep. Tom Graves from just across the line in Georgia. It represents a big majority of all Republican members of the House.
Left untouched would be the U.S. military, which is deeply involved in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the major entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare. (That is not to say that those programs do not need serious reform to keep them solvent, but it is more politically feasible to tackle other spending first.)
The House conservatives essentially would return federal spending among the affected programs to its 2006 level. Spending on those programs would then be frozen.
The Republicans recommend reducing the massively bloated federal workforce by 15 percent and suspending all federal pay raises for five years. That is plainly overdue. The federal government is too big and too intrusive in the lives of the American people. Diverting so much money into taxes and government and out of the private sector kills jobs, since government only redistributes – rather than creates – wealth and economic development.
Also targeted for cuts would be some foreign aid and programs such as unconstitutional Amtrak.
Are the proposed spending reductions broad in scope? Absolutely – and that is what they must be if the United States is going to begin to get its fiscal house in order without imposing crippling tax increases that would only harm economic development further.
“I have never seen the American people more receptive, more ready for the tough-love measures that need to be taken to help fix the country,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told The New York Times.
Maybe so, but no doubt many interest groups will protest when their “ox is gored” by spending cuts. And, of course, the Democrat-run Senate and President Barack Obama are certain to fight the proposed cuts vigorously. They, after all, believe that even more government spending is desirable.
But the American people and conservatives in Congress should not be deterred. We cannot get out of the financial pickle we’re in if we do not begin to make serious and, yes, sometimes painful decisions on where we will spend limited tax dollars.
“Anybody who is up to speed on budget issues should be scared to death by what’s happening with the debt and the deficit in this country,” Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., told The New York Times. “If you’re not losing sleep over it, then you’re simply not paying attention.”
Congress should dig out, polish and sharpen its budget ax – and start some very determined “chopping.”